and of the nature of the rest which she might purchase
for herself at some poor wayside inn, than she did of her future
life.

[Illustration: Carry Brattle.]

She got a lump of bread and a glass of beer in the middle of the day,
and then she walked on and on till the evening came. She went very
slowly, stopping often and sitting down when the road side would
afford her some spot of green shade. At eight o'clock she had walked
fifteen miles, straight along the road, and, as she knew well, had
passed the turn which would have taken her by the nearest way from
Salisbury to Bullhampton. She had formed no plan, but entertained a
hope that if she continued to walk they would not catch her so as to
take her to Heytesbury on the morrow. She knew that if she went on
she might get to Pycroft Common by this road; and though there was no
one in the whole world whom she hated worse than Mrs. Burrows, still
at Pycroft Common she might probably be taken in and sheltered. At
eight she reached a small village which she remembered to have seen
before, of which she saw the name written up on a board, and which
she knew to be six miles from Bullhampton. She was so tired and weary
that she could go no further, and here she asked for a bed. She told
them that she was walking from Salisbury to the house of a friend who
lived near Devizes, and that she had thought she could do it in one
day and save her railway fare. She was simply asked to pay for her
bed and supper beforehand, and then she was taken in and fed and
sheltered. On the next morning she got up very late and was unwilling
to leave the house. She paid for her breakfast, and, as she was
not told to go her way, she sat on the chair in which she had been
placed, without speaking, almost without moving, till late in the
afternoon. At three o'clock she roused herself, asked for some bread
and cheese which she put in her pocket, and started again upon her
journey. She thought that she would be safe, at any rate for that
day, from the magistrates and the policemen, from the sight of her
brother, and from the presence of that other man at Heytesbury. But
whither she would go when she left the house,--whether on to the
hated cottage at Pycroft Common, or to her father's house, she had
not made up her mind when she tied on her hat. She went on along
the road towards Devizes, and about two miles from the village she
came to a lane turning to the left, with a finger-post. On this was
wr